The 10 hole Short Course at Forest Dunes opened in August 2020 and is part of the trend of new destination golf resorts opening short courses with lots of short grass and wild greens. Those who have come to Forest Dunes in the past will be familiar with the site of the short course—the pretty, pine tree-covered hill just up past the driving range. I’ve previously profiled the 9-hole Threetops par 3 course at Treetops and have the 17-hole Sandbox at Sand Valley (plus the big courses) on deck.

The Short Course at Forest Dunes falls somewhere between Threetops and the Sandbox in style. Threetops is essentially a collection of full-length par 3s that could be on any normal course. The Sandbox has full length holes, but also a few 40-50 yard holes where you can do a bump-and-run or a putt. There are none of the former on the Short Course at Forest Dunes--its shortest hole is about 70 yards. Like the Sandbox, the Short is also a good drunk-and-barefoot course--not like Threetops, where drunkenness can result in putting your cart into the deep woods down a hundred foot hill, never to be seen again.

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The first is just out behind the patio and plays across the tenth. As we can see, it was 107 when I played it and could probably play up to around 125. I actually think that this hole would make a great 200 yard par 3 because you could use the bank short and right of the green to run the ball on.

The second is one of several 90-yard flicks to a very large and undulating green. This green exemplifies a common theme, which is large greens with collecting and rejecting sections. When the pin is in a collecting section, like on the left here, there will be holes in one. When it’s on a rejecting section, like this one, there will be three puts.

We can see that the pin on three is in a collecting area at the base of the ridge in the middle of the green here. But if you go long, the only thing collecting your ball is a hidden bunker. This hole really shows off the beautiful shaping that the architects Keith Rhebb and Riley Jones did on what was a gently sloping hill.

Four is a half wedge shot to a ridge-top green framed by half of a white pine tree. The other half was lost in the July 2020 storm that also took out most of the leaning white pine in the parking lot and the left half of the forked red pine on the thirteenth hole of the Weiskopf course.

Five is another big, wavy green with a collecting area left and a bunker through the back, like on two. The green on six is a bit different than those so far—long and skinny, with less interior contour and no bunkers. You can use the slope on the left to feed your ball onto the green and the slope over the back of the green to feed your ball into the eighth fairway. I like this hole a lot.

Seven plays uphill to another bunkerless green, but this one is much larger and with more interior contour than six. I find these bunkerless greens to be very visually appealing because they show off the interesting contours of the ground.

We pick up the bunkers again on eight and nine. Because it has a fairly flat an open approach on the left, nine might be the only hole that would work well with a putter. Unless you grew up at St. Andrews, putting, while possible, isn’t the best approach around this course because all the holes are at least 75 yards.

The tenth is probably the most standard par 3 here, playing about 125 to a large green with the open sand of the Weiskopf course as a beautiful backdrop.

I like having these short courses at golf resorts because they give you something else to do while drinking in the evening. This course is easy to walk and easy enough to hit the ball around, if if your vision and judgment are somewhat impaired. And if you’re not drunk or are a functioning alcoholic, there are a lot of opportunities on the Short Course to be creative and to use slopes to feed your ball to pin placements. So it’s a great addition to Forest Dunes—not that you needed another reason to go there.

The Gailes made a big splash when it opened, being named Golf Digest’s Best New Resort Course and finding for many years thereafter a high place on its top 100 public courses and top 25 overall in the state of Michigan. This is probably because when it opened back in the mid-90s, it must have been one of the most original new courses in the country—a pseudo-links course that actually looked like a real one, with wide, rippling fairways and hidden sod-faced bunkers. Many courses built in the 80s and 90s labelled themselves ‘links-like,’ but this usually just meant lines of mounds down the sides of the fairways and otherwise-standard shaping. The Gailes was one of the only courses that really made an effort to practice what it preached and was rewarded with many years of high rankings by all the golf magazines.

As with many courses built in the 90s that made a big splash on the lists, the Gailes has really fallen off in the last decade or so. It no longer makes any top 100 public lists and didn’t even make Golfweek’s recent (2020) list of the top 20 public courses in Michigan. I was very surprised to see this and it inspired me to revisit the Gailes.
I had only played the Gailes once before, in either 2004 or 2005. Back then, it was still on all the lists so I had very high expectations. I remember being a bit disappointed but also not being quite sure what to make of the course. Although I noted above that unlike the other 90s faux-links courses, the shaping extends into the fairways, I thought at the time that there was still too much mounding along the fairways relative to what was on them. And I thought that they overdid it with the pot bunkers, which were scattered seemingly everywhere. I also didn’t like their construction—they were very shallow and looked kind of cheap rather than authentic because the areas around them weren’t shaped to make the look like natural depression, which is what bunkers on links courses are. But I also thought that the greens were excellent and there were some very good holes, so I needed another look—which also gave me the opportunity to take pictures so that I could write this review.

Although I hadn’t remembered the details of some of the holes, my feelings about the course were very similar to what I had remembered having the first time. It’s a very good course, but I think that they could have done a better job with what they were trying to do. I felt that it was probably a bit overrated then but now that it has fallen off all of the lists, I feel like it’s underrated. I thought before that it was one of the top 20 public courses in the state, but closer to number 20 than number 1. I still feel the same way. And another thing that I’m now more aware of is that with its bent grass fairways, it doesn’t play like a links. We now have an example of true links fairways with the all fescue fairways at the Loop and the Gailes would benefit greatly if it had them. But I still appreciate that the course was original for its time, which should still count in its favor.


​The first hole is a good start with a solitary bunker in the right side of the fairway that will catch a weak drive. Otherwise it’s a straight-forward hole with a nice, open green which gives a clearer view to those on the left side of the fairway. The second hole is a medium length par 3 that plays to the undulating right half of a double green.

The next few holes are very tough. I remember not liking the medium-long par 4 third…and I was right. There are blind fairway bunkers everywhere and a creek cuts off the fairway in the driving zone and again in front of the green. I think there’s enough room if you carry the fairway bunkers up the right side, but it’s an unnerving drive, especially because the hole plays straight into the wind.

After a nice long par 3 to a large undulating green with bunkers along the right to catch weak shots, we come to an even harder par 4, number five. Bunkers pinch the fairway left and right and again, a creek cuts off the driving zone. But I found this hole more playable than I remember because a solid drive will easily carry the fairway bunkers and only the longest hitters can reach the creek. The green is also very receptive to a long approach.

The creek continues up the right side of the sixth fairway, but there is tons of room to miss left. I hit a terrible pull off the tee and was still in the light rough just off the edge of the fairway. And the angle of approach to the green isn’t that important because it’s completely open in front.

I like the tee box on the par 5 seventh, which is just a simple extension of the sixth green. We see this all the time now, but it was little features like this that made the course original for its time and gave it a reasonable claim to being a links course. This is a nice-looking hole, but there isn’t a lot of interest between the tee and the green.

The same is true for the very long par 5 eighth, which has little invisible bunkers scattered everywhere down the right side, but is is pretty straight-forward if you keep it down the left. To be honest, it isn’t even worth thinking about most of these fairway bunkers because they’re so small that they’re almost impossible to hit—like hitting a small puddle in the middle of the fairway. A good general rule on this course is to ignore individual fairway bunkers on any shot, but plan around bunker clusters. The green on eight is very good—small, elevated, and undulating.

The green on the very short par 4 ninth is also small and elevated with a false front in the front right. The fairway is enormous, but you’ll want to keep it up the right side to have an open shot up the slope.

The tenth is probably my favorite hole on the course for a simple reason—it’s the one hole where the mounds around the fairway are continuous into the hole, rather than just on the edges. This hole really feels like you’re on an actual links course rather than a solid imitation of a links course. The left side of the fairway is obscured by mounds on the left side and there are two blind bunkers here—it’s best to play over the right edge of the mounds that encroach from the left side, at the left edge of the part of the fairway that you can see. The second shot is over mounds that obscure a view of the punchbowl green from anywhere but left-center. If there were seven or eight holes with shaping like this one, the course would be quite impressive.

The par 5 eleventh returns to the standard mounding down the side, but it’s a very interesting hole. If you drive it down the shorter left side, your view of the lay-up area and green will be blocked by long grass-covered mounds in the left side of the fairway. You’ll either have to carry these to go at the green or lay-up to the right, being careful not to run through the fairway. Visually, it’s much simpler to play down the center-right.

The twelfth is the Gailes’s take on the postage stamp—140 yards to a small plateau green with a mound on the left and pot bunkers right and long. It’s a tough hole, but recoveries are doable if you don’t miss by too much—there isn’t a real danger of going back-and-forth here.

The thirteenth was probably the first 500 yard par 4 in Michigan and is just brutal. A creek cuts off the fairway about 175 yards short of the green, which is nestled into hillocks and has pot bunkers front left and front right. It’s pretty hard to run the ball onto the green given the soft fairways and narrow opening in front, so it’s probably best just to play for the front center of the green. The pitch from here is simple.

While not as long as the thirteenth, the par 4 fourteenth may be just as hard. While the fairway is wide, anything up the right side will be blocked by mounds that pinch the fairway about 250 yards off the tee and run up its right side. This is one of the hardest greens on the course to hit. It’s the right half of a plateau double green with number eleven and anything short, right, or long will run off. A run-up up the left side is blocked by a proper cavernous pot bunker behind the eleventh green and a small one front left of the fourteenth. It's a good hole, but very tough.

The fifteenth is par 5 with several blind bunkers in the left side of the driving zone. While it’s true that links courses have blind pot bunkers, in my experience (which is links courses in England and Wales), they’re more often visible than blind. The opposite is the case at the Gales—most of the bunkers are blind. This is another issue that I think would have been helped by more shaping in the fairways. More shaping in the fairways would have allowed them to create visible mounds and depressions and the latter would have been natural places for bunkers. Even if the bunkers themselves weren’t visible, the mounds would clue you in that there might be something there. As is, it’s very hard to play the Gailes without some kind of how schematic because on many of the holes, there’s often no indication where the trouble is.

To be honest, the final few holes are pretty uninteresting. The sixteenth is a bland par 3 with a large green. The seventeenth is a bit better; the fairway is pinched by clusters of pot bunkers left and right at about 250 and the approach—to the right side of a double green with number two—opens up from the right.

The eighteenth is flat and wide open as long as you don’t hit a long drive up the left, where many bunkers await. Keeping with architect Kevin Aldridge’s fetish for building an enormous green on the eighteenth hole of every course he designs (a nod to the eighteenth green on the Old Course at Indianwood, which his family owns), this green is about the size of five or six normal greens put together. There’s some contour, but not enough for such a large green and this is a pretty dull way to finish an otherwise interesting, if flawed, golf course.

I was a bit disappointed by the Gailes fifteen years ago but came to think in the meantime that it was probably a better course than I thought. Playing it again, my first sense was correct and now it’s more clear to me why. It is a more authentic take on a links than anything from around that time, but there are several little problems and missed opportunities with the design. The amount of shaping between the holes relative to in the fairways is the biggest problem. And more shaping in the fairway would have helped with a second big problem, which is the blindness of such a high percentage of the fairway bunkers. A few of the holes are a bit too severe and running the ball onto the greens is difficult due mostly to the fairway grass, but also because there are too many bunkers in front (on thirteen, for example).

These complaints aside, the shaping of the greens is excellent, the course has pretty good flow, and there are several very good holes. The greens have great variation in both their size and interior contour. It’s certainly one of the better sets of green complexes on any public course in the state. The course’s flow is also good; some holes are very difficult, but there are stretches of easier holes to offset them. And there are several very good holes, especially in the middle of the course. I think that one of the architects currently in vogue (like Gil Hanse or Tom Doak) could have done a better job with the concept; for example, although it’s been awhile, I thought that Doak’s course at the Legends in Myrtle Beach, also from the early 90s, was a better faux links. But this is a very good course and it was novel for its time, so I think that we should still give it a lot of credit. And it should still be on lists of Michigan’s best public courses.

Probably the most prolific non-Michigan-based golf course architect in Michigan for the last four decades has been Arthur Hills. In the 90s and early 00s, he designed several of the highest profile new public courses (Bay Harbor, Shepherd’s Hollow, Boyne Highlands) plus many country-club-for-a-days of more local reputation. Although he hasn’t designed any of the recent big name courses (he might be retired?), his courses still occupy several places on best-of lists in Michigan.

I think that these late 90s/early 00s courses are an improvement over some of the earlier ones that he did (i.e. Pheasant Run in Canton or Fieldstone in Auburn Hills). His shaping has become more subdued with less mounding around the fairways and greens. And his bunker placement and green design have created more strategic interest than on his older courses (see especially the first few holes at Boyne Highlands). But I’ve never played an Arthur Hills course that didn’t have some major issue with its routing and/or a few bad holes. Bay Harbor, Shepherd’s Hollow, and Boyne Highlands are all good and each has some excellent holes, but each kicks a few own goals and because of that, none of them makes it into my highest ranks of Michigan public courses. They’re lining up in the bottom 5 of my top 20 public courses in the state but none of them quite cracks the top 15.

That is, until I played Red Hawk, just north of Tawas, for the first time recently. I’d heard from several people that it was an excellent course and it spent several years on Golf Digest’s top 25 courses in the state and its top 100 public courses in the country. Although it has fallen off recently, I was interested to get there to see if I thought that it was the best Hills course in the state and, more importantly, if it could avoid the self-inflicted wounds from which all of the others suffer.

And with the exception of one weak point in the routing—the long drive between seven and eight—I think it does. Except for the river valley that splits the front nine, the property is excellent, with good natural contour and some outstanding trees. There are several good holes (2, 4-6, 11) and no poor ones. While I think there are a few instances of shaping around the greens that the contour of the ground made completely unnecessary (around the eighth and twelfth greens), the shaping is never intrusive and generally well-done. The property is excellent and I think that another architect could have done better, but I think that Red Hawk is Hills’ best public course in the state and it cracks my top 15.

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The course gets off to a subdued, but still interesting start at the first. It’s a fairly long par 4 that gradually doglegs left around an oak tree. The angle of the green opens up from the outside of the dogleg and the approaching fairway is split into two tier—a higher (by maybe three feet) right tier that feeds onto the green and a lower left tier where the further you go, the narrower the angle onto the green and the more that you have to deal with the left green side bunker. It’s a tough but good first hole.

The second is a drivable par 4 and one of the best examples that I’ve seen in the state. The green is narrow and elevated over bunkers left and right and actually slopes front-to-back—which is a rarity on an Arthur Hills course. If you go for the green and miss wide, you have an almost-impossible up-and-down. But you still need to be careful with the lay-up. More than most drivable par 4s that I’ve seen, it’s important to leave yourself a good yardage here because the green isn’t receptive and you’ll need some check. And especially if the flag is in the front, the angle is important (left-center is best) because the green is very narrow. An excellent hole—the best short par 4 that I’ve played by Hills.

After the third, which is the obligatory northern Michigan drop shot par 3 that of course features in most of the course’s promotional material, we come to an excellent medium-length par 4. This one is a bit awkward as the hole bends gently to the left and the fairway slopes to the right. It’s wide enough not to be gimmicky, but you’ll want to play up the left because the front of the green from here is open while from the right, its partially obscured by rough.

Five is an excellent par 5, which I’ve come to realize are usually the strength of his design. He places a lot of emphasis on dramatic and interesting par 5s (7 at Bay Harbor, 13 at Boyne Highlands, most of them at Shepherd’s Hollow). To a fault because he sometimes eats up the best land with par 5s at the expense of a workable routing (the third nine at Shepherd’s Hollow is incredibly guilt of this). But this hole is over modest ground and is one of the best examples of bunker usage that I’ve seen on a Hills course—two staggered on the drive, a big one that forces a decision or a clever workaround on the lay-up, and just one in the front at the excellent green site. It’s not as flashy as the aforementioned par 5s, but it’s every bit as good.

Six is a medium length par 3 with one of the most interesting greens that I’ve seen on a Hills course—sort-of half-bowl-shaped with a low middle left and a few ridges coming in from the right. While my game was going terribly, the opening six holes are not only the best stretch that I’ve seen on a Hills course in Michigan, they’re one of the better stretches on any public course in Michigan.

My enthusiasm starts to become tempered at seven, however. This is a very long par 5 and while very nice for about the first 450 yards, the choice of green site on the side of a steep hill is poor. While the shaping of the green is fine given the site that they chose, there were much better choice short and right. This also would have made the routing a little less awkward as you wouldn’t have had to drive all the way around the fourth hole to get to the eighth.

After probably a 400 yard drive around the fourth green and over the river valley, which could have been the site of a nice uphill par 3 to complement the drop shot 3rd, we come to the long, dogleg left par 4 eighth. This is a very nice hole, with a wide fairway where there’s a premium on being up the left side to open up the angle of the green. The only complaint that I have is about the small mounds around the green, which are completely pointless. They could have moved the green a few yards back and right and done no shaping at all.

Nine, a medium-short par 4 is probably my least favorite hole. Unless you hit it right in the middle of the fairway, you have to go over or kick a field goal between two large oak trees. Ten is a long par four along a right-to-left slope with a pond on the left for the last 70 yards. There’s plenty of room to run the ball onto the green from the right and the fairway contours help with this.

Eleven is another excellent par 5, doglegging first left than right. Again, there’s plenty of fairway to the right, but this makes the approach much longer. Like at the first, the fairway splits into two tiers on the approach, with a lower right side that leaves a semi-blind approach to the green and a high-left that leaves an open one. You can run a ball up to the green on the left side if you’ve hit a long drive but there’s still a strong premium on laying-up to the left.

The next two holes, a par 3 over a marsh and a medium length par 4 over flat ground are modest, although the shaping around the latter’s green is simple and well-done. The fourteenth is a very difficult medium-long par 3 with a green similar to the second—narrow and sloping front-to-back. A miss wide here leaves a very difficult recovery shot. Best to play to the back of the green, which is its widest area.

Fifteen is a very nice medium-length par 4 where carrying the fairway bunker on the right leaves you the best view of the green. An approach from the left side is deceptive because there is a rise 50 yards short of the green that makes it seem closer than it is—and there’s a hidden bunker on the far side of the mound.

My other least favorite hole is the par 5 sixteenth—so it’s not surprising that it’s the other hole that features in the course’s promotional material! The drive slopes right with bunkers on the left and unless you’ve hit a decent one, it’ll be hard to carry the marsh that crosses the fairway ~180-150 out from the green. The green is carved into a big hill and while it’s an attractive setting (the white pines here are among the best I’ve seen), I prefer something more modest. It's not really a bad hole, but it's tough and a bit awkward.

The par 3 seventeenth is a good short iron shot to a small green. The eighteenth is a very tough long par 4. Swing away because unless you hit it 300 yards, you’ll stay short of the fairway bunker on the left. The approach is a good one. It looks like the green is completely fronted by bunkers but except for the one on the right, they’re at least 50 yards short and you can run the ball in from the left side of the fairway.

I think that hole-by-hole, Red Hawk is pretty clearly the best Arthur Hills public course that I’ve played in the state. It’s a strategic golf course with several excellent holes and no really bad ones. The bunker placement is good and the shaping of the bunkers and greens is mostly well-done. For my liking, it’s also only of the most beautiful pieces of land for a course in the state with nice contour and beautiful trees—that appropriately function mostly as a backdrop.

But it still has the Arthur Hills problem of not quite bringing everything together. In this case, it’s the awkward routing of the front nine. I’m almost certain that the long cart ride between the seventh and eighth could have been avoided. If they had reversed the routing of 4-7, the seventh green could have been next to the edge of the valley and the eighth could have been a par 3 back across—which we can be pretty sure would work because they already did it at the third. The probably would have had to eliminate the par 3 sixth and maybe lost one of the par 5s, but that would have been worth it. And because the rest of the course has fairly short green to tee walks, it would have made the course completely walkable.

Of course no one goes on vacation to northern Michigan to walk a golf course so the routing decision was poor strictly from an architectural standpoint rather than a practical one. Still, it’s probably enough to keep Red Hawk just outside of my top 10 public courses in the state.

One of my favorite things in golf is to find a true hidden gem. Everyone always wants to play the big list courses and those are usually worth the trip, but you go in there with high expectations. Unless they’re really great, you often leave thinking, ‘yeah it was great, but I already knew that it would be.’

But when you come to a course that you know little about, your expectations are modest and could be exceeded by quite a bit. That was the case for me with the Leelenau Club at Bahle Farms. To be fair, my traveling golf buddy—who’s played more Michigan public courses than I have—said that this was his favorite up north. But I’ve never seen it ranked or even mentioned in any golf magazine. So when I was visiting a friend in the Leelenau Peninsula and she suggested that we play golf, I suggested that we come here.

Good choice; not only is Bahle Farms a very good course, it’s easily in my top 20 public courses in the state. The course is nicely routed over hilly (but not mountainous) terrain. The bunkering is well done and the shaping is minimalistic, with greens fitting very well into their surroundings. But, in addition to a few excellent holes, the real standouts here are the green surfaces, which are some of the best in the state. The green contours are broad and wave; not the kind of random, ripply contours that I usually like, but very interesting and challenging. All of it adds up to a beautiful, interesting, and challenging course.



The first tee shot is pleasant enough, downhill to a somewhat saddle-shaped fairway. The green is on a shelf to the right over a deep bunker left, so right-center is the best angle of approach. The par 5 second is the first of several excellent holes. While it could use some tree clearing left of the start of the fairway, there’s plenty of room down there to play to. You can see from the tee that the green angles from front left to back right, so if you’re laying up, you’ll want to do it near the left fairway bunker. There’s also a bunker short right to avoid if you go for the green. But the most notable thing about this hole is the green, which generally slopes back to front, but with several little humps around the edges. There’s also a short grass collection area to the left if you pull your approach. This is one of the best par 5s in the state.

The third is a bit awkward: a dogleg left short par 4 with a reverse camber fairway. You have to be very careful with this tee shot as it’s easy to lose a ball if you get too aggressive. The second shot is uphill to a heavily contoured green in a bowl. A very tricky hole, especially for first time players, but the visuals are good enough so that it doesn’t seem gimmicky.

The par 3 fourth is very tough but for my liking, one of the better looking pond holes that I’ve seen. It’s all carry to the green, but the green is very attractive, sitting in a saddle at the base of a forested hill. The dogleg left par 5 fifth is also a bit awkward, but the visuals here are worse than the third. Anywhere in the fairway is fine, but the hole can play quite long if you keep it to the right. The second is a lay-up short of the ravine in front of the green, which is framed by cherry trees.

The par 3 sixth is sort-of a redan green, higher on the right than on the left and with contours that allow you to feed the ball to back left hole locations. The seventh is an excellent, medium-length, uphill par 4. The tee shot is pretty wide open but it’s clear that the hole narrows as you approach the green, so this limits how much you can spray it. Plus, the green clearly angles from front left to back right, so a shot up the left side is preferred. The approach is very difficult—it plays at least one club uphill and the green is convex, sloping off in the front, right, and back. A miss short is alright and a close miss right will get hung up in green side rough. But as with several other holes, the real star here is the green, which is very wavy and has a big ridge running across the middle from left to right. The ridge broadens to become a fairly large back right tier (where our pin was). This green exemplifies the greens at Bahle Farms, which are often very undulating, but always give you a decent amount of room to play to around pin positions and safe misses around the greens.

You can also see the green on the downhill par 4 eighth and once again, it’s clear from the front-left to back-right orientation of the green that you’ll want to play up the left side. After a bit of a cart ride uphill through the woods, we come to the par 3 ninth, with a green shelved into a hillside. This isn’t my favorite hole as it feels like it belongs on one of the many poorly routed northern Michigan with poorly chosen, severe green sites. But it’s the only green on the course like this, so it’s forgivable.

Running parallel to the first on its left, the tenth is a pretty wide open and straight forward hole. The eleventh is a northern Michigan special…the drop shot par 3. I actually like this one a lot because there’s plenty of room to miss short. That’s important because when you’re going 75 feet downhill, it’s difficult to judge how far the ball will fly.

After an uphill right doglegging par 5, we have a bit of a change of setting: a long par 4 through a cherry orchard. This fairly flat hole is nevertheless interesting because the right fairway bunkers guard the best line to the green, which has a single bunker on its left. The long par 4 fourteenth is also very interesting. The tee shot could use a bit of tree trimming, especially on the hill on the left. But there’s plenty of room out there and a good tee shot sets up a very elegant looking second shot over a ravine and two bunkers. The shot also plays very well because there is ample short grass short and left and the contours slope toward the green, allowing you to run the ball onto this small green.

The par 3 fifteenth shouldn’t be too hard—there’s plenty of room up there. But if you miss short, the fall will come back a good 10 yards. The par 5 sixteenth doglegs right around a hill. You’ll want to hit a good tee shot here so that you can be sure that you can get your second up the hill and through the saddle. There are no bunkers for the last 2/3 of the hole and it doesn’t need them; the hole falls beautifully across the land and the pinching of the lay-up area with trees right and left creates demand for accuracy. And again, the green sits very simply on the land.

The short par 4 seventeenth has a bit of an awkward uphill drive into another saddle-shaped fairway. But the hole balances with awkwardness with another very simple green site, which is one of my favorite in the state. It doesn't look like they moved any dirt to build this green. Bahle Farms is on a great piece of land but the course shows that if you do a careful job of routing the holes, you can have beautiful, simple green sites where you don’t have to move a lot of earth, saving a lot of money and creating something in harmony with, rather than fighting its surroundings.

The par 4 last features a very challenging approach up a hill to another heavily contoured green. It’s a fitting conclusion that captures the course well—very pretty, challenging without being too difficult, and with an excellent set of greens.

While Bahle Farms may not be as strategic as, say the South Course at Arcadia Bluffs, the greens are as interesting as just about any Michigan public course and the choice of green sites and shaping around the greens show that the designer (and I don’t know who that was) really knew what he was doing. This course is probably the closest thing to Tom Doak’s sadly defunct High Pointe in Traverse City. It exemplifies his style of design nicely, with minimal shaping around the greens and fairways and emphasis on the contour of the green surfaces.

All in all, Bahle Farms is as good as anything in northern Michigan, save for maybe the top tier place like Arcadia Bluffs and Forest Dunes. Given that it’s cheaper than almost all of them, it’s definitely worth a play if you’re near Traverse City.

On my summer of 2020 supposed-to-be-quarantining-but-fuck-it-let’s-go-on-another-golf-trip golf trip up to Greywalls to play with the only people who are true enough of believers to try and walk Greywalls, my traveling golf buddy Bob and I decided that we needed to check some boxes off at Boyne Highlands. I had played the Heather but not the Ross or the Hills, he had played the Ross but not the Hills or the Heather. Because I couldn’t get us on Belvedere in the window of time that we had, I scheduled rounds for us at these three Boyne Highlands courses.

I have to admit, it’s difficult for me to get too excited about an Arthur Hills course. Although there are some that I like (like Shepherd’s Hollow, which I think is the best public course in southeastern Michigan), I don’t think that I’ve played one that didn’t have some poor routing choices, bad shaping, and/or stupid holes. But I try to keep an open mind and I’d heard that the Boyne Highlands course was one of his best. Looking at the course on Google Maps wasn’t reassuring—it looked like the holes were scattered across the whole greater Harbor Springs area. But it certainly wouldn’t be the first unwalkable course in northern Michigan and several of them are still quite good.



The course gets off to an excellent start. In fact after about four holes, I thought that I might be playing the first excellent Arthur Hills course out of the few dozen that I’ve seen. The first hole is reminiscent of the first hole at the—alas, much better—Forest Dunes. It’s a medium length par 4 with a wide fairway that gently doglegs right to a green that opens up from the left. It’s a good template for an opening hole.

The second hole is a very nice short par 4 where you can go at the green over a waste bunker to the left or play a safer shot that results in a poorer angle out to the right. The carry isn’t too demanding but when you get to the green, you’ll realize the importance of leaving yourself your preferred yardage—the green is small and slopes away to the back.

Three is a very interesting par 5. The tee shot plays diagonally (left-to-right) over a waste bunker and the green is probably reachable if you hit a long drive that skirts it. The next shot is one of the more interesting lay-ups that I can think of on a par 5. You can play short of a complex of bunkers to the right that is clearly well short of the green or you can carry another bunker on the left to a tighter stretch of fairway on the left that runs to the green. That’s enough to make it interesting but once you see the green, you’ll realize that there’s an additional trade-off. The green is deep and skinny and the angle opens up to the right side of the fairway. But if you lay-up here—which is the easier task—the approach is also blind over the bunkers. The lay-up left results in a clear look at the green, but with a worse angle. The sweet spot is right in the middle; if you go between the right edge of the left fairway bunker and the left edge of the further right one, you'll have a good angle and a partial view of the green. This is one of the better par 5s in  Michigan.

The fourth is a medium length par 4 that doglegs gradually left around a pond but the fifth, a long par 4 cut through an old red pine plantation is. Not for the tee shot, which is pretty wide open, but for the green complex—a rarity for Arthur Hills. It’s a good thing that it’s wide open off the green because the green is hard to hit. It’s slightly elevated and there’s a bunker to the left, but the most interesting thing is the collection area that runs from the front right of the green around the back. While there’s a safe miss to the front that allows for an easy bump-and-run, anything missed right or long leaves a very difficult shot of at least 50 feet up about a 5 foot hill. The edges of the green are concave so as long as you get it to the putting surface, it won’t come back to your feet. But like Pinehurst #2, which is always my reference point for collection areas around greens, this hole leaves you a safe place to miss but leaves you a very awkward shot if you get too aggressive.

Although the distances between them are unnecessarily long, the next two holes, a par 5 and a par 3, are very pleasant. Through the first seven holes, the terrain and holes here reminded me a lot of Tullymore just north of Grand Rapids, but far less awkward and really, quite good. But the course starts to get more difficult with the dogleg right par 4 eighth. There’s a huge waste bunker the runs down the left for most of the length of the fairway to the green but because it’s the lowest point in the area, it had become a pond, making the approach to the green unintentionally difficult (you can still see the shaping of the bunkers to the left, but they’re completely flooded).

The unnecessary difficulty continues at the ninth, a medium length par 3 to a green that’s about 25 feet wide, sloping down a hill into moguls on the left and into a wetlands on the right. It’s even tougher from the back tees, which are at about 215 yards and shift the angle to the right so that the green is shallow.

The next few holes have quite a few severe features, including more greens built up too high above their surroundings. This is an issue at the tenth, which is fairly open off the tee but whose green is elevated about 10 feet above its surroundings on a plateau of short grass. There should be enough width, but it makes for a very intimidating shot and a miss wide right or left creates an opportunity for a back-and-forth X.

The eleventh is a very difficult, but interesting par 5. Though the fairway is wide, you need to hit a solid drive that skirts the bunker on the left because if you don’t, it will be difficult to clear the fairway bunker carved into the hill on your second, about 110 yards short of the green. The hole gets quite narrow as you approach the green, which is built up above woods on both sides, but at least the slope up to the green from the chipping area on the right is a bit more gradual and the plateau isn’t as high as on the previous hole.

Twelve is a medium length par 4 fitting the theme of the recent holes: wide-open fairway, uphill approach to a narrow green. After about a 250 yard uphill cart ride through the woods, we get to the par 5 thirteenth, which is featured in all of the course’s promotional material. It’s probably 100 feet downhill from the tee to the fairway, then probably another 50 or 60 down to the green. Marketing value aside, it’s a good hole because the fairway is wide enough, but you can still get in trouble if you try to shorten the hole by going down the left side. Off a good drive, you’ll have a good chance to go for the green in two and while there isn’t a good way to run the ball up onto it, you might be able to fly it there.

The fourteenth is a beautiful medium length par 3 to a green nicely sited on a ridge. But the drop off to the right is too severe—if you miss here, the ball will run down a 20 foot hill, 20 yards away from the green. The medium long par 4 fifteenth is very good, doglegging right around a long fairway bunker that you’ll either want to skirt or carry. The more of it you can carry to the right, the shorter approach you’ll have and with a better angle. If you pull your tee shot, you’ll be blocked by a tree just left of the fairway and have to play around the bunker at the front left of the green.

While they’ve been too severe occasionally, most of the holes to this point have been very good. Unfortunately, that isn’t true of any of the final three holes. The par 3 sixteenth plays up the other side of the waste bunker-cum-pond from the eighth hole. It’s all sand near this green, but it’s unimaginative and the shaping around the green is overdone and ugly—more 80s/90s Arthur Hills than the 00s Arthur Hills of the rest of the course.

The seventeenth is a split fairway par 4 that makes no sense. A bit like the tenth at Forest Dunes, it’s almost like the two fairways are two separate holes—especially because this one has a separate set of tees for each fairway! I don’t understand what they were trying to do here because it doesn’t seem like the approach to the green is very different from either side. If they let the right side fairway go fallow and become a nice meadow, it wouldn’t be a great hole, but at least it wouldn’t be so inexplicable.

The last hole is a very difficult par 5 which ends on a bit of a cliche—a second shot where you can go for the green over a pond left or lay-up out to the right, where the closer you hug the pond, the shorter a third shot you’ll have. The lay-up here is visually confusing because of several bunkers around the landing area and the large reeds growing a long the pond.

Despite the poor finishing holes and some green complexes being a bit too severe, I liked the Hills course at Boyne Highlands. In fact, it’s almost the best Hills course that I’ve played in Michigan—although I think I’d have 1-18 at Shepherd’s Hollow slightly ahead because it’s more walkable and its worst holes are only borderline rather than outright stupid (The Links nine at Bay Harbor is better than both, but I haven’t played the Quarry nine). The opening holes are mostly very good and contain a lot of interesting strategy and shaping. I think that they could have toned down several of the remaining holes, but the bigger problem is the poor finish--fix the last two holes and now you have a course without serious weaknesses. Except, of course, for the routing, which they could have made more cohesive, with fewer long drives between greens and tees. But as is typical for northern Michigan, everyone is going to ride a cart anyway, so there isn’t a much reason to bother (although the Heather next door is walkable…).

The Ross Memorial Course at Boyne Highlands is attempt to replicate 18 of the best/most famous holes that Donald Ross either designed himself or in the case of the replica of the fourteenth hole at Royal Dornoch, heavily influenced him. While I like the idea of using template and even replica holes, I don’t really like the idea of a course having 18 of them because (1) it’ll be difficult to find the right land for each and fit them together into a cohesive routing and (2) the bunker and green styles from the replicated holes will be different and the replica course will suffer from style inconsistencies between the holes. Both of these are an issue on the Boyne Highlands Ross Memorial Course.

Having said that, it’s a very good golf course if you don’t mind taking a golf cart. Individually, the holes are all good to very good—although it’d be a bit odd if they weren’t since they’re replicating great holes. But while I haven’t seen the originals of most of the holes, they did a reasonably good job of replicating the ones with which I am familiar. They also seem to have done a good job of finding roughly the right land on which to site these holes—which must have been very difficult to do out in the deep, northern Michigan forest. That they did a good job with this probably contributes to the lack of walkability, but there was probably no way around this given that they wanted to build of a course of replica holes.



After a 5 minute cart ride from the clubhouse (which seems to be a signature for Boyne courses), we come to the medium length par 4 first, which is a replica of the sixth at Seminole, minus the palm trees and the billionaires (well, maybe one or two come here). The hole has 11 huge bunkers, although they don’t feel too imposing off the tee. The approach is a different matter; the green is very narrow and is angled to receive a shot from the left side of the fairway. It rises to the middle, then falls away to the back. It’s a very interesting green.

The second is a short par 4 replica of the fourth at Plainfield. The hole bends to the left and has a slight reverse camber fairway. An approach from the left is shorter and with a better angle. The third is a replica of the long par 3 seventeenth on Oakland Hills South, with which I am familiar. They found a good site for this hole and did a good job with the bunkering, which just completely smothers the green (like the original). Although it’s been awhile, I remember the Oakland Hills green being slightly bigger and with a more severe spine from the back middle toward the front of the green.

Four is a medium long par 4 replica of the fourteenth at Pinehurst #2. Again, I’m familiar with the original hole and they did a pretty good job with the details. The drive is similarly downhill although this version continues slightly downhill to the green while the original approach is flat. The bunker placement is similar but they didn’t do a good job with the short grass collection areas around the green—which is also an issue on the other two Pinehurst replica holes.

Five is an uphill, very long par 5 that replicates the thirteenth at Oak Hill East. If it’s anything like the original, they shouldn’t have tried replicating that hole because this one is just an endless uphill slog with an awkward creek abruptly ending the fairway in the driving zone. The sixth is a medium long par 4 replica of the second at Scioto and is very nice. While there’s room to the left, the right fairway bunkers seem to be magnetic (probably because the tee aligns you slightly in that direction—I hate when holes do that).

The short, uphill par 4 seventh replicates the finisher at Inverness and is also quite good. From 240 out, there are bunkers down both sides of the saddle shaped fairway. It’s not really drivable for anyone who drinks only the right kind of juice, so it’s best to lay back short of that and have a short iron. The eighth is a pretty medium long par 3 over a pond to a large green, a replica of the eleventh at Charlotte Country Club.

After a bit of a cart ride back to the ninth tee, we come across a replica of the par 5 eleventh at Bob O’Link which has one feature that I’m pretty sure isn’t on the original—the cart path running through the middle of the tee boxes out to the fairway. I’m not sure why they did this, but it at least makes it easy to start the hole if the party in your golf cart got going a little bit too heavy too early.

The long par 4 tenth is a replica of a hole that Ross didn’t design, the fourteenth at Royal Dornoch. Ross was from Dornoch and it’s a famous course, so it stands to reason that it was a major inspiration of his. The last two holes have given us a bit of a different landscape treatments, coming out into a meadow and in this case, the hole is lined on both sides with mounds covered with long grass. Royal Dornoch is a links course, so I’m sure there are mounds down both sides covered in long grass, but I would imagine that they also come into the fairways—which is something that the architects of American faux links courses always forget to do. Also here, the plateau green is surrounded by rough rather than short grass, which is un-links-like because it disfavors running the ball onto the green.

Back into the woods for eleven, a replica of the short par 4 thirteenth at Salem Country Club in Massachusetts. Although I haven’t seen the original, this one is an very good, falling beautifully over the rolling contours with an excellent green site fronted by 3 bunkers. The twelfth is a nice downhill par 3 fronted by a big bunker, a replica of the third on the North Course at Detroit Golf Club.

After another long cart ride (back into the meadow), we come to the thirteenth, a replica of the par 5 fifteenth at Seminole. This hole has a double fairway split by bunkers and a few pines (the northern Michigan replica of palm trees). The right hand fairway, which makes it reachable also has a pond down the right, providing a good degree of risk for the reward. Split fairway holes often aren’t very good (look no further than the seventeenth at the neighboring Hills course) but this one does a good job of creating options that make sense and balance risk and reward.

Yet another long cart ride takes us back into the woods for a replica of the par 4 second at Pinehurst #2. It’s pretty good but the angle of the tee is slightly off—the original is a slight dogleg right while this one is straight—and the misses here right and long aren’t nearly as severe, due to a tamer green and lack of short grass around it. The second hole on #2 is one of its most difficult because the only good miss is short left. Here, you can recover from most places.

Fifteen is a medium length uphill par 4 that replicates a hole from Aronimink. If this version is any indication, I don’t need to see the original. Then we come to sixteen, a replica of the long par 5 tenth at Pinehurst #2. That is one of the most difficult par 5s that I’ve ever played, but this one is easier. The first two shots do a decent job of replicating the original, except that the waste area/bunkers come in a bit more on the right on the drive and a bit more on the left on the second shot. The original features one of the hardest lay-ups that I’ve ever seen because there isn’t a lot of room between the left bunker and the waste area on the right and you have to hit a good driver to clear it and get with 125 yards. The green here is much smaller and is a real miss as far as the replication. They seem to have only tried to replicate the middle of the green, forgetting to build the back left and right wings that are so difficult to approach unless you’re in just the right part of the fairway (not to mention the very difficult collection area long).

Seventeen replicates the par 3 eighth from Wannamoisett. It’s got four green side bunkers and an interesting spine coming in from the front left. I guess because we’re in Michigan, we have to end on the willow/pond par 4 sixteenth from Oakland Hills. This is a very good replication of the older version, before Rees Jones came in and wrapped the pond around the back of the green to make it look like TPC Sawgrass North. They’re restoring Ross to Oakland Hills now but we’ll still have this memorial to the late 80s version—before the course got the golf course architecture equivalent of plastic surgery in the Dominican Republic (but much more expensive) and had to go on its version of Botched (starring Gil Hanse) to make it look how it looked in the beginning (before those in charge decided that they could do better).

While I wouldn’t encourage building replica courses, this one, stylistic incongruities and long walks aside, is well done. I’m sure that designing this course was a very difficult process. They probably had to go through an iterative process of picking Ross holes that they liked, figuring out where on their land they could put them, trying to make a routing out of that, tossing out holes that wouldn’t fit, picking new ones, trying the routing again, etc. It’d have been nice if they could have made a more cohesive, walkable routing, but that probably would have required a lot more earth moving or considering an even greater variety of holes to replicate. It’s hard to judge how possible that would have been.

So in the end, it’s best to just judge what’s here on its own merits. And I’d say that they’ve certainly got got one of the best courses at Boyne (on the same level as the Hills next door and at least that of the Heather), one which provides something different from the others. I’d also say that even though time and the rankings have passed it by (it won Golf Digest’s Best New Resort course in 1990), it’s still one of the better public courses in northern Michigan and—at least before I’ve seen the last few of the contenders—sneaks into my top 20 public courses in the state.

The Heather was the first course at Boyne Highlands and was designed by Robert Trent Jones Sr., right at the height of his career in 1966. Not surprisingly, it exemplifies the most well-known characteristics of his work (for better or worse). Most holes are playable, but it’s pretty hard to make a par—so hard par, easy bogey. I’d played the Heather once before my summer 2020 visit, in early May about 10 years before in cold, wet spring weather. So I wasn’t too impressed by the course. But then a year or two after that, it started showing up in Golf Digest’s top 25 courses in the state…and then showed up a few times on their top 100 public courses! I was baffled by this, as I thought that time and taste had since long passed it by. But when I was headed up to Greywalls with my travel golf buddy Bob—who hadn’t played it before and wanted to check a box (his goal seems to be to play ever course in Michigan, no matter how terrible)—it gave me an opportunity to see if my original assessment of the course had been off.

I’m pleased to say that it was off by a bit—this is a better course than I had remembered. But more notably, it’s a much more difficult course than I had remembered. And I think that that’s part of the reason that I liked it more; I’ve become a better golfer in the last 10 years and this is the type of course that a good player is going to like. Like I said, it exemplifies Trent Jones Sr.’s work; most of the holes are a ‘hard par, easy bogey.’ If you’re a good player who hits the ball fairly straight and can put an iron into the air, it’s a very good test of golf. But as Bob can attest, it’s very hard for the higher handicap. There are ponds in front of several of the greens and bunkers in front of the ones that don’t have ponds. It’s too hard for the average resort golfer, but everything is front of you and there’s usually room to avoid the trouble—with a few notable exceptions.



The first three holes are fairly similar; medium length par 4s that dogleg right, with the primary driving hazard on the right. They’re also all essentially without fairway bunkers as the one fairway bunker, left of one, has become mostly obscured by tree growth. Each also has a few green side bunkers and a green that angles slightly from front-left to back-right. Nothing too special but hey, this is Trent Jones Sr. in the peak of his career when everyone who hired him probably just told him to keep doing what he was doing.

Speaking of similarity, the medium long par 3 fourth is the first of three similar par 3s, all full carries over ponds. This one has a large and undulating green so after three only moderately hard holes, this one gives you a real taste of what’s to come.

The par 5 fifth is one of the hardest par 5s in the state of Michigan. The fairway is wide enough, but there are wetlands left and forest (plus cart path) right. You really need to drive the ball as far as you can and up the left side to avoid having to play this hole very defensively because a pond starts about 250 yards out from the green on the left side and the hole doglegs continuously left around it. If you want to lay-up within 100 yards of the green, you have to carry the pond to get there. This is a very intimidating shot because it looks like if you hit it too far or push it on this line, it’ll run into wetlands through the fairway. They may or may not be true; I just hit a pitching wedge out to the right and then another onto the green. If you’re a good player, it’s always important to remember that even if you play very conservatively to a tough par 5 with your lay-up, the next one won’t be too long (unless you screwed up your drive…).

After another all carry par 3 over a pond, we have another medium length par 4, this time a dogleg left. The green is on about a 45 degree angle front left to back right so here, it’s important to hug the inside of the dogleg—moreso than on the first few holes because the green is quite shallow from the right. The eighth is also a dogleg left, but it’s a long par 4 with fairway bunkers right. The premium here is more on distance rather than being in one side of the fairway or the other because the green is open in front, with the bunkers to the sides.

The ninth is another difficult dogleg left par 5 with a pond on the left. Unless you hit a very good drive, this pond makes the lay-up very tough because you’ll have to thread it between the pond and trees on the right. If you hit a good drive, you can easily carry the pond to a generous lay-up area for the last 125 yards of the hole. The green is elevated with three bunkers in front.

The back nine is very difficult, but results in fewer lost balls as it replaces ponds with bunkers. The medium long gently right doglegging par 4 tenth has five bunkers just short and around the green. You’ll need to drive up the left side to have a good angle in. The short par 5 eleventh has two staggered fairway bunkers but unless you’re name is Bryson DeChambeau or maybe Rory McIlroy, you won’t be able to reach the one on the left so you just need to avoid the one on the right. If you’re laying up, there’s not much to think about. But as we’ll see, the green is typical for this nine, completely surrounded by four huge bunkers.

After the least interesting of the three pond par 3s, we come to two very difficult medium long par 4s. The thirteenth doglegs left and has no fairway bunkers, but the green is elevated and completely surrounded by four large bunkers. The fourteenth green is also elevated and again, completely surrounded by four large fairway bunkers. The difference here is that this drive is straight, but there’s a big fairway bunker on the right and a ridge bisecting the fairway, meaning that you’ll have to hit a good drive just to get a view of the green that you probably won’t hit (maybe a blind shot in is just as well…).

Like the eleventh, the fifteenth is a fairly short par 5 and will be reachable off a good drive. It’s better to be in the left side of the fairway of this slight dogleg left because this time, Trent Jones left a generous 20 foot wide opening between the two front green side bunkers on the left side. The sixteenth is the first par 3 that isn’t over a pond and is a very nice hole, perched into a left-to-right slope with a big green side bunker short right and two left, setting up nicely for a fade.

The seventeenth concludes the most merciful three hole stretch since the first three. It’s a nice medium short length par 4, doglegging right up a hill. Hopefully you’ve played them well and built up a reserve of good humor, which you’ll need for the eighteenth. This is one of the most ridiculous holes in the state—a long par 4 where the fairway runs out about 170 yards short of the green, leaving about 160 yards of pure carry over a pond. But don’t worry, Trent Jones left a 12 yard wide strip of fairway along the pond to the left…and your ball runs down a hill into the pump house if you miss it left (apparently the owner wanted it to be all carry and Trent Jones had to convince him to let him leave even this narrow strip). Unless you manage to drive your ball into the little corner between the pond and the beginning of lay-up strip, you may end up throwing as many clubs into the pond as you hit balls (I wonder which water hazard in the state of Michigan gets the most clubs per player?).

I can’t imagine how difficult this course must have been in the late 60s with the equipment that they’ve had. Maybe it didn’t play as long as its current 7,150 from the back tees (I sure hope not), but unless you were a really long hitter, most of the greens would have required very high, soft shots to hold. They still do and unless you’re a really long hitter, it’s going to be a major struggle. I’m a kind-of short-hitting 2 handicap and it was a real bitch from the mixed back tees (maybe 6,800). A lot of these resort courses are listing mixed back tees on the scorecard, where you move up on most of the toughest holes (I like this and make them up for myself on courses that don't have them). Unless you’re better than a scratch, that’s as far back as you should go here.

Despite the difficulty, I liked the Heather. Other than the last hole, it’s an honest challenge. And, unlike every other Boyne course that I’ve played, it’s a good walk. The green-to-tee distances are all short and the terrain is very modest for a course in this part of the state. It'd be a fantastic tournament course, I think even for the PGA Tour (I think it's harder than Innisbrook's Copperhead course, which is always one of the harder ones on tour).

So even though it’s nowhere near being a great course and doesn’t really have any business being on a list of the top 25 courses in the state or certainly the top 100 public courses in the country, it’s worth playing if you’re in the area—provided that you bring your 3 handicap friends and not your 25 handicap ones. Unless they’re a scratch with a ball retriever.

While par 3 courses and short courses have become all the rage in recent years at big golf resorts, before then, they were mostly downscale, standalone courses with minimal maintenance budgets, intended for beginner golfers. These types of courses served an important role, especially when the game was growing. But no one really thought of par 3 courses and short courses as courses which could be really interesting and worth playing in their own right. And golf resorts certainly weren’t thinking about what type of short course they could add.

All of this may have changed recently but back in the 90s, there was one golf resort that built a 9 hole par 3 course that was not only not meant to be lesser than the main courses, but one that many people saw as a highlight of the resort: Treetops. The course was Threetops, a 9 hole par 3 course designed by then-pro and now part-owner Rick Smith, which opened in 1992 alongside the Fazio Course. Unlike the new par 3 courses (in addition to having a standard number of holes…9, as opposed to 10 or 12 or 17), the par 3s on this course are all of conventional lengths, ranging from just over 100 yards to about 220 yards. Overall, the holes are still on the short side—some kind of wedge will be enough on most of them. But they’re long enough that they can’t be played with some alternative method, like a bump and run, putt, or throwing the ball on the green, unlike some of the newer short courses.

The other, not so positive thing about Threetops that distinguishes it from the new short courses is that it’s not walkable. This isn’t great for a 9 hole par 3 course, but this was never intended to be a place where you go out in the evening in your bare feet with your friends and carry 3X as much weight around in beer as you do in golf clubs (like at the Sandbox at Sand Valley). They took full advantage of the dramatic, almost mountainous property and created something that, like most of the other Treetops courses, feels like an adventure. But it’s easier to carry all that beer in a golf cart any way, so load it up and drive over to the first tee.\


The first hole is one of the easier holes on the course, about 140 yards, but to a much larger green than most. The green is receptive but not too steep and there’s plenty of width—which won’t be the case for many of the rest of the holes.

Like the first hole but unlike most of the rest, the second is pretty flat but features two greens: a smaller one to the left on a ridge to the left where missing left or long is a lost ball and a larger one to the right that slopes heavy from right to left. I didn’t get a shot from the tee, but we can see the pitch in this photo from behind the green.

While the 120 foot downhill par 3 sixth on the Jones Course gets most of the attention at Treetops, the third on Threetops is…150 feet downhill. It’s also longer, about 220 from the back tees. I had no idea what club to hit, so I guessed 7-iron—which was probably the right club, but a slight push sent the ball sailing off toward the woods on the right. It’s really hard to judge such an extremely downhill shot and I think that this applies as much to accuracy as distance.

After a downhill flick with a wedge over a bunch of bunkers, we come to the fifth, which cranks up the difficulty. Three of the first four holes are pretty short and with receptive greens, but five is not only difficult for this course, it would be a difficult par 3 on any course…about 165 yards uphill to a deep but narrow green. You’ll want to stay below the hole here, but accuracy is by far the most important thing.

After a drive to the sixth tee that’s longer than any of the holes, we face another tough mid-iron shot. This time, the green is fairly shallow but wide. It’s receptive but distance control is important because you don’t want to be in the back bunkers.

The par 3 seventh is a very short (~100 yards, but about 70 feet downhill) hole where Lee Travino won $1 million for a hole-in-one in the 2001 shootout that he used to play here with Phil Mickelson, Lee Janzen, and some of Rick Smith’s other students and friends from 1999-2006. While I’ve said that this isn’t a pitch-and-putt course, this is the one hole where you probably could throw the ball on the green…and you’d probably have a better chance of making a hole-in-one that way.

The eighth is another downhill wedge to a fairly small green surrounded by bunkers. That brings us to the last hole, which is similar to the first but is a bit more intimidating because it’s uphill and you can’t see the surface of the green. They had been blasting the bad weather siren since were were on the eighth tee, but we’re not going to sit in the clubhouse for two hours just to have to play 9 minutes worth of par 3s, so we quickly hit, lost our balls (well, one of us), and called it a morning.

So that’s Threetops, the predecessor to the current trend of short courses at golf resorts. While they’re clearly going for a different concept than a place like the Sandbox at Sand Valley—you don’t want to play this one barefoot and too much drinking may result in you losing more than a few golf balls—Threetops is a lot of fun and is an integral part of one of Michigan’s best golf resorts. Even though they haven’t played it in almost 15 years, they got good publicity for the Threetops Shootout and it seems that everyone is still pretty excited to play this course—they were lined up on the first tee when we headed out later in the afternoon to play the first Smith big course right next door.

The Jones course (or as they call it, the ‘Robert Trent Jones Masterpiece’) at Treetops was its first and may be the type species for northern Michigan deep forest adventure golf. Although it wasn’t the first of its type (I think that award goes to the Legend at Shanty Creek), it’s exemplary of the type, taking you on a long ride up and down severe hills through thick woods, with some of the steepest drop shots in the state. It also has small greens and sometimes narrow fairway perched on the edge of wooded oblivion, making it perhaps the most difficult of a type of course that already tends to be quite difficult.

I’ve always had a bit of a soft spot for the Jones course, perhaps because I played well on my first visit in the early 2000s (although definitely not on my second about 10 years later). But I think I'm pretty good about not letting how I played affect my judgment of a course and that aside, the Jones course is lot of fun to play and it's stunning. I’m not quite sure why, but it feels more adventurous than its counterparts here and at the other big northern Michigan deep forest resort courses. It feels like you’re driving around the whole greater Gaylord area out there and like its younger sister the Smith Signature, there’s a nice variety of landscapes and good transitions between them. I think I like it because it feels like more of an adventure than almost any other course that I can think of, even if that isn't always so good for the quality of the golf. But people will  (and do) like it.

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The difficulty starts with the medium length par 5 first. It requires a solid drive to carry a big ravine and unless you hit a long drive well out between the fairway bunkers, you’ll have a blind, downhill shot to a lay-up area that slopes toward a pond in front of the green. If you’re laying up, you should lay well back to avoid rolling into the pond. If you’re going for it, you need to be very accurate because both the run-up and the green itself are very narrow. Tom Doak hates this hole, but I think it’s fine as long as you hit a half decent tee shot and don’t get too aggressive with your second.

After crossing the entrance drive, we have a medium long uphill par 3 to a green with bunkers…seemingly everywhere. Add in the ravine and it’s a very intimidating shot, the first of many. While I didn’t get a picture, the back tee on the mid-length par 4 third is one of the wildest I’ve seen; about a 230 yard carry through a chute of trees across a wooded ravine. The rest of the tees, to the left of the ravine, leave a visually simple tee shot, but now a good drive can run through the fairway to the left over the cart path into another (blind) ravine. You must err short on the approach to the deep, skinny plateau green because anything missing to the sides or long is likely lost.

The over-difficulty continues on the long par 3 fourth. The built a new, receptive green in a grove of trees to the right about 15 years ago but as of the summer of 2020, they had abandoned it in favor of the original green up the hill 200 yards to the left, almost completely fronted by two bunkers.

The par 5 fifth is my choice for the worst hole on the course and is simply one of the worst holes that I’ve ever played. The landing area for the fairway is a bit too narrow and the trees on either side are an almost guaranteed lost ball. If hit your ball straight down the right side with some distance, it will likely bound forward into the woods. The second shot is even worse. There’s a huge ravine on the left and the fairway snakes along about a 12 yard wide ridge, also sloping off on the right…over a cart path into the woods. Unless you can reach the green, where it opens up again, the only sensible play is to lay back to about 150 yards. One of my playing partners hit what he thought was a good lay-up shot toward the tallest tree in the second picture. I didn’t see him again until about 10 minutes later when we teed off on the sixth.

The sixth is the most famous hole at Treetops and apparently, the namesake for the resort. That’s appropriate if true because you’re shooting out of the treetops, 120 feet downhill to the green. It’s a difficult shot to judge because none of us is used to hitting such a downhill shot. I think I took two clubs less on a calm day but if the wind were blowing, you’d probably take fewer shots if you just putted it down the winding cart path.

The seventh is a medium length par 4 with an approach that’s more uphill than it seems. That brings us to the sharp dogleg right par 4 eighth, a solid contender for the second-worst hole on the course. The tee shot is actually quite good; you can play safe into the slope to the left, but you can dramatically shorten the approach by skirting the trees on the right and cutting the dogleg. That’s especially important here because the green is on a peninsula into a pond and while probably 40 yards deep, is about 17 feet wide. Plus there’s a bunker front right and a small one front left. I just don’t really get it. I don’t know why you’d build such a narrow green surrounded by water with a bunker short making it also difficult to play safe (one of my playing partners attempted to lay-up, only to have his ball bound forward over the edge of the bunker onto the green. Maybe that’s the way to play it.).

The next two holes are quite a hike uphill but I actually like both of them. You need to keep your drive on the medium length par 4 ninth to the left to have an open angle to the green. The tenth is an adventure and a beast from the back tees—about 620 yards, down into a valley for about 250 yards, then about 100 feet uphill for about the last 370. One thing I like about long uphill holes is that the put a real premium on hitting the ball solidly. You can be stuck on that hill for awhile if you don’t. And this hole does a good job of keeping the additional challenges to a minimum, which is a nice change of pace. There’s a single bunker about 125 yards short of the green but if you can’t carry it, there’s room to go around it on the right. The hole also offers a nice change of scenery as it opens up into a beautiful, sprawling meadow.

The eleventh is a beautiful mid-length par 4, sweeping left around two fairway bunkers then back uphill to a plateau green. The twelfth takes us back through a meadow, doglegging gently to the left to a green that is unnecessarily difficult to hit; shallow and on a plateau, with a trough of rough block the run-up to most of the green. As with the fourth and eighth, I’m not sure why Jones wanted to make it so difficult to hit this green, especially when everything else is already so difficult.

Including the medium long par 3 thirteenth to a very wide, but very shallow green that has a high left and low right tier. There isn’t much much of a good place to miss here. The fourteenth features a downhill, semi-blind drive where the fairway abruptly ends at a ravine about 125 yards short of the green. From here, it’s a shot over a lot of lost golf balls (I found a few nice ones) to a deep but narrow green. It’s one of the better approach shots on the course for my liking because you probably won’t lose a ball if you get it up there and most recovery shots are manageable.

The next hole is a short par 4 that isn’t really drivable—but that didn’t stop everyone in the 28-person outing in front of us from trying and slowing the pace of play to three hours for the back nine (due, I suspect, entirely to this hole because the pace slowed to nothing as we approached this tee then it picked back up for the last three holes). It’s a well-designed hole, narrowing as you get closer to the green, but they need to clear a lot of trees and junk around the tee because the fairway is barely visible from the tips.

After a short, uphill par 3 which shouldn’t be too hard if you don’t pull it left down onto the seventeenth tee, the medium length par 4 seventeenth opens back up into a meadow. You need to stay left of the two right side fairway bunkers to have an open shot to a shallow, very Trent Jones green complex, with two bunkers in front and one behind built into one of two mounds.

The last is a long straight par 5 with a large fairway bunker on the left. Although there’s a lot of room right, you should keep your drive to the left because from the right rough, you’ll be partially blocked by trees. All that you need to do with the second is to keep it ahead of you and hopefully, get it to a yardage that you like to give you an easier shot to the small, heavily sloped green.

You might be surprised about the critical tone of most of this review after I said in the beginning that I have a soft spot from this course and find it a lot of fun to play. 17 foot wide greens with ponds on both sides and good lay-ups that result in lost playing companions don’t sound like a lot of fun (well, maybe the latter depends on the playing companion…). But thinking back on it, here’s the sense that I can make of that—individually, many of the holes are too severe, but the collective experience of playing them is fun because playing the course feels like a real adventure, taking you through many different settings…up and down hills, out into meadows, into the middle of ponds. It’s a great place to drive a golf cart around and drink a few beers with your friends…although they should have a blood alcohol limit about half of the legal one out here because driving the cart is at least as much of an adventure as playing the holes. And most of the holes really aren’t bad, although I wouldn’t say that any stands out as being particularly great.
Overall, the Jones is a tough course to rate. I’d definitely recommend playing here, but I wouldn’t say that it’s a really good course. It’s probably the worst of the four main Treetops courses, but I’d rather play it again than one or two of the others and I’d certainly recommend playing it to a first time visitor who didn’t have time to play all of them. It’s a pretty unique experience and definitely pure northern Michigan.

The fourth full-length Treetops course—which I’ll call Smith II because it was the second full-length course here designed by part-owner Rick Smith—was designed to be a more playable and walkable companion to its often unplayable and always unwalkable older siblings (although I was the only one walking it on a busy Sunday morning in summer 2020). It’s a beautiful golf course over land that’s just the right hilliness for golf. As on his previous course, Smith fringed the bunkers with long grass but he added fewer of them and also widened the fairways and toned down the green contours relative to his previous effort. So it’s definitely not one of the more difficult resort courses in northern Michigan, but there are plenty of those already. With a handful of excellent holes, it’s a very good course that compares favorably to most public courses in the state.

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The opening par 4 is very forgiving off the tee, but has several bunkers that can catch inaccurate shots to the green. The medium length par 4 second features a beautiful drive down into a valley with a bunker on the left about 260 out. At this point, the hole narrows and turns gradually right, uphill to a narrow but deep green. The first two bunkers as we approach the green create an illusion, as they’re about 30 yards short of the green. The first two holes characterize the course well-the first is wide open and not too hard, while the second increases the challenge, but isn’t ‘very difficult.’ Both are very attractive and have clever design elements.

The par 5 third has a very wide driving and lay-up zone. But if you want to challenge the green, you’ll have to skirt the long grass and fairway bunkers left. So it’s a pretty easy hole for high handicappers and presents a challenging task for long-hitting, low handicap golfers.

The next two holes are attractive medium long par 4s, both with down hill drives. The fourth continues downhill, doglegging slightly right to a green set into a right-to-left slope with (again) several green side bunkers while the approach to the fifth features a very attractive approach slightly uphill through a valley, encouraging a run up shot. Neither is too difficult or strategic, but there are several bunkers to catch errant shots.

After a lovely downhill par 3 that’s well-defended by bunkers, we come to the seventh, a slight dogleg right short par 4. There’s more room in the fairway than it appears, with the second fairway bunker being out of range. A drive up the right side opens up a slightly better angle to the large green. The eighth is also a short par 4 and again, a drive to the right opens up the angle to the green. But the placement of the drive is much more important here because the green angles front right to back left and is narrow, deep, and two-tiered…running front-to-back. You don’t see too many two-tiered greens where the lower tier is in the back (although the Fazio course has two overdone ones). It’s an interesting twist and this is a good hole.

But not as good as the ninth, which is the best hole on the front nine and one of the best par 3s at Treetops. It’s a medium length par 3 running slightly uphill a beautiful green. There’s all kinds of trouble to the right, including trees that will catch a push and long grass. The left also looks challenging with a bunker and long grass, but the bunkers are well short of the green and there’s much more green over there than appears. All of these subtleties plus the lovely setting make for an excellent par 3.

The next two holes are a back-and-forth short par 5 and long par 4. We were downwind on the former, so the par was essentially reversed. Fortunately the wind wasn’t as strong as it had been the day before we played, evidence for which you can see in the 75 foot tall sugar maple that had been knocked down about 100 yards off the tenth tee. Both holes are well-suited to any wind, with ample width off the tee and in the approach to the greens, although the tenth is best approached from the right.

The twelfth is another excellent par 3—about 200 yards from the back tee rising slightly uphill and on a slight left-to-right slope. Again, the bunkering here is excellent and reminds me of images of classic parkland courses—one well short of the green on its line to the left, a second front right, and a third back left.

We cross a road into a more heavily wooded section of the property for the next two holes but again, there’s substantial width. The thirteenth is a short, downhill par 4 where apparently it’s possible for an even not-long hitter (like me) to drive the green. But I’m not sure that this is the best play as the ball tend to run to the right side of the fairway down there and the green is narrow with a bunker right.

The fourteenth is another excellent hole; a mid-length par 4 where you drive out of a chute of trees over a valley with a large fairway bunker on the left. There’s another fairway bunker to the right, but it’s not in play unless you’re someone who drinks seven protein shakes a day. The approach is a beauty, to a small green tucked to the left, slightly up a hill. But there’s plenty of room to bailout right or to run the ball onto the green from there. Although with the two previous par 3s, this is a great hole and a standout both on Smith II and generally at the Treetops Resort.

We have two more fairly short but heavily bunkered par 3s at the fifteenth and seventeenth. Both greens have high right and low left sides and are deeper than they are wide. They’re almost identical holes, except the former is in the woods and the latter is in a field. The sixteenth is a long and tough par 4, doglegging right over an eye candy bunker. The drive is very close to the forest line on the left, so it’s easy to get nervous and spray your ball toward the trees on the right. Fortunately, they’re pretty far out but this will leave you with a long second that again, is to a green that gives you a good opportunity to run the ball on.

The eighteenth is a medium length par 5 in the back-and-forth stretch with ten, eleven, and sixteen. There isn’t too much trouble from tee to green here but the green angles from front-left to back-right and you’ll want to play your lay-up over the second set of fairway bunkers on the left, toward the one left of the green. Again, there’s a lot more room between these than it seems.

Overall, I found Smith II to be a very well designed golf course. Rick Smith was clearly trying to let up on the gas from his previous effort Smith I, which was narrower and had more undulating greens. But while the critic might want a few of the fairways to be a bit narrower and/or a handful of centerline bunkers to create more strategy off the tee, the ample green side bunkering and angled greens help create this. It’s a course that gives everyone an opportunity to score, yet can still give the good player trouble if they’re not hitting their irons well. It’s a course that all but maybe the plus handicap should like (although they probably won’t mind shooting 63) and should be more highly regarded both at Treetops and among all public courses in the state. I have it in my personal top 20 among public courses in the state; not every hole is a masterpiece, but there are a handful of excellent ones and no bad ones.